Vogelsong overcomes running gaffe, guides Giants to victory

Published 9:19 pm, Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Milwaukee – The Giants and their fans got to attend science lab Wednesday night. Under the microscope was Ryan Vogelsong. The academic question under consideration was whether the 37-year-old pitcher would shrink or grow after an inexcusable blunder on the bases cost the team at least one run.

Vogelsong's line over six innings provided the answer. He held the National League's second-highest scoring offense to one run on a homer to his first batter, Carlos Gomez.

Vogelsong's refusal to break under the weight of his two mistakes and and several impressive offensive performances keyed a 7-4 victory that ended the Giants' five-game losing streak at Miller Park and gave them a 4-2 record on their trip with four to play.

Vogelsong left with a 4-1 lead that shrank to 4-3 on Aramis Ramirez's two-run single in the seventh against Jeremy Affeldt, but eight-inning singles by Juan Perez, Hunter Pence and Joe Panik extended the lead to 5-3, and Pablo Sandoval put it out of reach with a right-handed line-drive homer, his second of the series and 14th of the year — matching his 2013 total.

Panik's single was his third of the game and eighth hit in the past three games, a windfall from a rookie who seems determined to settle the second base question posthaste.

The Giants also got a huge assist from Michael Morse, who had three RBIs on two two-out hits, returning to the lineup after manager Bruce Bochy gave him two days off to think. Morse had been in an awful clutch-hitting slump.

Morse's two-run broken-bat single in the first, which barely squeeked into the outfield, must have felt like a 900-foot grand slam for a guy who had eight RBIs over the past two months.

Vogelsong's gaffe was failing to run out a two-out, bases-loaded one-hopper in the first inning, a strange play resulting in the third out after the Giants had scored three against Yovani Gallardo.

As the inning's ninth batter, Vogelsong cued the ball to shortstop Jean Segura, who tried and failed to outrun Brandon Crawford to second base.

Vogelsong was jogging up the line and stopped as the play unfolded at second, restarting only when Segura threw to first. Had he kept running, Morse would have scored the inning's fourth run and Pence would have batted with the bases loaded. Instead, Vogelsong was out, the inning over.

He had no time to fume because he had to take the mound, and a homer by his first hitter, Carlos Gomez, surely fueled fears on the San Francisco side that Vogelsong had taken his mistake to the mound.

But that was all for Milwaukee against Vogelsong, whose night ended when Segura hit a long out to center with two aboard and two outs in the sixth on the 10th pitch of their encounter.

The Giants had not scored in the first inning on the trip until they victimized Gallardo for three runs.

Pence and Panik opened the game with a singles, Pablo Sandoval continued his clutch ways with an RBI single before Morse's single gave the Giants a 3-0 lead.

One key for the Giants was Panik's hard takeout slide on a potential Buster Posey double-play ball, which might have contributed to Scooter Gennett dropping the ball as he attempted his throw to first.

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